alex speier

Paying for the twilight of the idols: Precedents for David Ortiz's contract

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- You might have heard: David Ortiz wants to tack a season onto his current two-year, $30 million deal that is set to expire after the 2014 season, and the Red Sox hope to extend the one player who was present for each of the team's three title runs since 2004.

The fact that Ortiz has gained "face of the franchise" status for a champion does create different negotiating dimensions. Typically, contract negotiations will take place directly between the GM/baseball operations department and an agent; in this case, ownership is also involved in a face-to-face sitdown, a reflection of the idea that the player's significance to the organization is anything but standard.

What does that mean for his next deal, which almost certainly will come with the Sox? To get a sense for that, it's worth looking at other players with tremendous longevity (10 or more seasons) in an organization who signed deals that covered at least their age 39 seasons within a year of their free agency.

In the last five years, there have been five such players who received contract extensions from their clubs. Here are what their last deals looked like:

Preceding contract: Three years, $37 million with $10 million option (ages 34-37)

Preceding season at time of deal: 128 games, .364/.470/.574

When extended: April 2009, at the start of final pre-free agent season

In addition to those five players, there are two additional players who enjoyed iconic standing within their organization (at least 10-plus consecutive years) who ended up changing teams via free agency at their age 39 season or later:

New team contract: One year, $5.5 million - incentives up to $10 million (age 42)

Preceding contract: One year, $14 million; $12 million team option

Preceding season: 28 IP, 2.57 ERA, 11.6 K/9, 2.6 BB/9

Note: The one-year, $14 million Smoltz signed with the Braves in April 2007 -- more than five months from his free-agent eligibility -- was expected to be the last of his career. But because he was injured for most of 2008, the Braves declined their option.

TREVOR HOFFMAN, PADRES TO BREWERS

New team contract: One year, $6 million - incentives up to $7.5 million (age 41)

Preceding contract: Three years, $21 million

Preceding season: 45 1/3 IP, 3.77 ERA,30 saves, 9.1 K/9, 1.8 BB/9

What are the takeaways from these seven contracts? There are a few:

1) The deals for Rivera, Jeter, Jones and Smoltz' final deal with the Braves (the one-year, $14 million deal with the team option, signed at age 40 to cover his age 41 season) likely represent the best comparisons to Ortiz's situation. Those four players were not just longtime franchise cornerstones who could be connected to the teams' championships who were expected to be central contributors (everyday players in the case of Jones and Jeter; a closer in the case of Rivera; a front-of-the-rotation starter in Smoltz's case) at the time their deals were signed. Wakefield and Varitek, on the other hand, represented complementary members of the roster by the time of their final contracts with the Sox.

2) It is not unusual for players at this stage of their career to reach free agency. While the Braves moved early to extend Jones and Smoltz, the Yankees, Red Sox and Padres all let their iconic players get to the open market.

3) The question of why the Sox might negotiate now with Ortiz instead of waiting to see if he remains healthy through the year is a fair one. After all, it would be logical to assume that if he misses meaningful time due to injury, his contract value might get pushed down considerably.

That being the case, it's worth noting that three of these "iconic" players -- Jeter and Rivera with the Yankees, Smoltz in leaving the Braves for the Red Sox -- signed their final deals after missing virtually all of the previous season with injuries. All three of those deals suggest that a free-agent deal for an iconic player coming off an injury-ravaged year are limited.

Rivera received the same guarantee for the 2013 season that he had for the prior two years. Jeter did take a pay cut from $17 million to $12 million, but he didn't exactly come cheap -- and his contract certainly was far in excess of what his 2013 performance warranted. Smoltz received his $5.5 million guarantee from the Sox -- with a lot of easily reachable incentives that could have positioned him to earn about $10 million for roughly half a season of work.

So, while the tendency is to let these iconic players reach free agency, the benefit of doing so has been limited.

4) Jones and, in his final Braves contract, Smoltz offer the two examples of franchise icons re-signing with their clubs at the start of their final guaranteed season, when both were coming off of extremely strong seasons. Both received significant raises for their late-career contracts. Jones went from a $10 million option in 2009 to a $14 million average annual value, while Smoltz (in his final Braves contract) went from an $8 million guarantee for 2007 to a $14 million guarantee for 2008.

5) The takeaway: This limited sample of players suggests that those who have entered the rarefied air of icon/franchise cornerstone rarely are asked to take financial steps backwards as they near (or pass) the age of 40, regardless of whether those players signed before or after they became free agents, regardless of whether they were coming off healthy seasons or injured ones.

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